Releasing Drug Offenders Won’t End Mass Incarceration

It’s been a landmark week in the criminal-justice world, as a barnstorming President Obama pushed for broad reforms to the sentencing system and called for an end to mass incarceration. (The U.S. has roughly 5 percent of the world’s population, but a quarter of its prison population.) On Monday he commuted the sentences of 46 federal drug offenders. On Tuesday he addressed the NAACP’s national conference, delivering a sobering and expansive speech with a list of proposed reforms. And on Thursday he became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison.

“Over the last few decades, we’ve also locked up more and more nonviolent drug offenders than ever before, for longer than ever before,” Obama said in Philadelphia at the NAACP conference. “And that is the real reason our prison population is so high.”

But that’s not exactly the case. Serious prison reform — and shedding the dubious mantle of World’s Leading Incarcerator — will have to look far beyond just nonviolent drug offenders. Heavy prison sentences for drug crimes are only one of many reasons why the United States has by far the highest incarceration rate in the world.

As Obama said in his speech, there is remarkable bipartisan agreement on this issue. Even in the current polarized political climate, real reform is possible. U.S. Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are sponsoring bills that would reform drug-crime sentencing, restrict the use of mandatory minimums, broaden the use of probation, and increase the discretion given to judges in sentencing nonviolent drug offenders. Even the American Civil Liberties Union and Koch Industries have joined forces. They co-authored an article in Politico last week declaring their support for the Sensenbrenner-Scott bill.

It’s not clear yet how many current and future inmates would be affected by these bills — an analysis by the U.S. Sentencing Commission of the Sensenbrenner-Scott bill is expected in August or September — but let’s consider some extreme scenarios and the effect they’d have on the American prison population.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, there are 207,847 people incarcerated in federal prisons. Roughly half (48.6 percent) are in for drug offenses. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are 1,358,875 people in state prisons. Of them, 16 percent have a drug crime as their most serious offense. There were also 744,600 inmates in county and city jails. (The BOP data is current as of July 16. From BJS, the latest jail statistics are from midyear 2014, and the latest prison statistics from year-end 2013.) That’s an incarceration rate of about 725 people per 100,000 population.

Suppose every federal drug offender were released today. That would cut the incarceration rate to about 693 inmates per 100,000 population. Suppose further that every drug offender in a state prison were also released. That would get the rate down to 625. It’s a significant drop, no question — these hypothetical measures would shrink the overall prison population by about 14 percent. (There isn’t data from BJS on the most serious charges faced by those in local jails, so let’s assume that no jail inmates are released in these scenarios.)

But let’s have some international context. Even in that extreme hypothetical situation, the U.S. would still be an incarceration outlier. Even without its many inmates who are convicted of drug charges, the U.S. still leads the world in imprisoning people. Next is the U.S. Virgin Islands, with a rate of 542 per 100,000 people, followed by Turkmenistan at 522 and Cuba at 510. Russia’s rate is 463. (See the bottom of this post for the full list of international incarceration rates. The international data is from the International Centre for Prison Studies, and I’ve restricted the list to countries with a population of at least 100,000.)

Locking up drug offenders is only part of the larger story behind mass incarceration. Other reasons for the high rates include the severity of nondrug sentencing, the attitudes of judges and prosecutors, a high rate of violent crime such as murder, and rising crime rates in the 1970s and 1980s. “The increase in U.S. incarceration rates over the past 40 years is preponderantly the result of increases both in the likelihood of imprisonment and in lengths of prison sentences,” the National Research Council wrote in a report last year.

Reformers interested in ending mass incarceration — or at least in getting America’s rates in line with those internationally — will have to think far more broadly.1 It’s a much thornier problem than that.

COUNTRY

INCARCERATION RATE PER 100,000

U.S.

725

U.S. (without federal drug offenders)

693

U.S. (without all drug offenders)

625

Virgin Islands (U.S.)

542

Turkmenistan

522

Cuba

510

Rwanda

492

El Salvador

465

Russian Federation

463

Thailand

452

Belize

449

Grenada

430

Guam (U.S.)

422

Panama

392

Bahamas

379

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

378

Trinidad and Tobago

362

Costa Rica

352

Belarus

335

Puerto Rico (U.S.)

335

St. Lucia

321

Barbados

318

Lithuania

315

Maldives

304

Brazil

301

South Africa

292

Iran

290

Swaziland

289

Cape Verde (Cabo Verde)

286

Curaçao (Netherlands)

285

Uruguay

282

Georgia

281

Kazakhstan

275

Mongolia

274

Taiwan

269

Guyana

264

Latvia

264

French Guiana/Guyane (France)

261

Colombia

242

Chile

240

Israel

240

Peru

236

Martinique (France)

234

Dominican Republic

233

Aruba (Netherlands)

233

United Arab Emirates

229

Samoa (formerly Western Samoa)

227

Tunisia

225

Morocco

221

Singapore

220

Estonia

218

Azerbaijan

218

Mexico

214

Moldova

212

Turkey

212

Gabon

210

Poland

198

Albania

198

Honduras

196

Ukraine

195

Suriname

194

Czech Republic

191

New Zealand

190

Macau (China)

189

Botswana

188

Slovakia

187

Kyrgyzstan

182

Hungary

180

Bahrain

175

New Caledonia (France)

172

Fiji

171

Montenegro

170

Venezuela

166

Algeria

162

Ecuador

162

Saudi Arabia

161

Malaysia

161

Mauritius

160

Uzbekistan

160

French Polynesia (France)

158

Paraguay

158

Vietnam

154

Argentina

154

Nicaragua

152

Australia

151

Tonga

151

Romania

148

United Kingdom: England & Wales

148

Zimbabwe

145

Jamaica

145

Namibia

144

United Kingdom: Scotland

144

Bhutan

143

Spain

141

Serbia

140

Macedonia

140

Brunei Darussalam

139

Bulgaria

138

Portugal

137

Malta

135

Bolivia

134

Iraq

133

Armenia

132

Equatorial Guinea

132

Tajikistan

121

Greece

120

China

119

Kenya

119

Guatemala

117

Zambia

117

Reunion (France)

117

Kiribati

115

Cameroon

115

Hong Kong (China)

114

Myanmar

113

Philippines

113

Luxembourg

112

Ethiopia

111

Uganda

110

Lebanon

108

Lesotho

107

Canada

106

Belgium

105

Angola

105

Micronesia, Federated States of

103

Republic of (South) Korea

101

France

100

Sao Tome e Principe

100

Libya

99

Cambodia

98

Haiti

97

Austria

96

Jordan

95

Cyprus (Republic of)

94

United Kingdom: Northern Ireland

93

Kosovo

93

Sri Lanka

92

Croatia

91

Kuwait

86

Italy

85

Burundi

85

Switzerland

84

Madagascar

83

Afghanistan

83

Ireland, Republic of

82

Mayotte (France)

80

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Federation

80

Benin

77

Egypt

76

Germany

76

Vanuatu

76

Netherlands

75

Slovenia

73

Tanzania

73

Malawi

72

Norway

71

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Republika Srpska

71

Laos

71

Indonesia

66

South Sudan

65

Djibouti

63

Togo

63

Senegal

62

Mozambique

62

Denmark

62

Sierra Leone

61

Sweden

60

Syria

60

Finland

57

Yemen

53

Qatar

53

Ghana

53

Nepal

52

Papua New Guinea

52

Sudan

50

Solomon Islands

49

Japan

49

Gambia

48

Iceland

45

Bangladesh

45

Liberia

43

Mauritania

43

Cote d’Ivoire

43

Pakistan

41

Niger

40

Chad

39

Timor-Leste

38

Oman

36

Democratic Republic of Congo

35

India

33

Burkina Faso

33

Congo (Brazzaville)

33

Mali

32

Nigeria

32

Comoros

28

Republic of Guinea

22

Central African Republic

19

Footnotes

You can see for yourself the difficulty of cutting the prison population with this interactive at The Marshall Project.